Night Over Water (39 page)

“That’s just pride,” Diana said. “It’s because another man has taken me away. Mervyn’s competitive. If I’d left him and gone to live at my sister’s house he wouldn’t have cared tuppence.”

Nancy laughed. “It sounds as if he has no chance of getting you back.”

“None whatsoever.” Suddenly Diana did not want to talk to Nancy Lenehan any longer. She felt unaccountably hostile. She put away her makeup and her comb and stood up. She smiled to cover her sudden feeling of dislike, saying: “Let’s see if I can cakewalk back to my seat.”

“Good luck!”

As she left the powder room, Lulu Bell and Princess Lavinia came in, carrying their overnight cases. When Diana got back to the compartment, Davy, the steward, was converting their seat into a double bunk. Diana was intrigued to see how an ordinary-looking divan seat could be made into two beds. She sat down and watched.

First he took off all the cushions and pulled the armrests out of their slots. Reaching over the seat frame, he pulled down two flaps in the wall at chest level, to reveal hooks. Bending over the seat, he unfastened a strap and lifted out a flat frame. He hung this from the wall hooks to form the base of the upper bunk. The outward side slotted into a hole in the side wall. Diana was just thinking that it did not look very strong when Davy picked up two stout-looking struts and attached them to both upper and lower frames to form bedposts. Now the structure looked more sturdy.

He replaced the seat cushions on the lower bed and used the back cushions as a mattress for the upper one. He took pale blue sheets and blankets from under the seat and made up the beds with fast, practiced movements.

The bunks looked comfortable, but frightfully public. However, Davy broke out a dark blue curtain, complete with hooks, and hung it from a molding on the ceiling that Diana had thought was merely decorative. He attached the curtain to the bunk frames with snap fasteners, making a tight fit. He left a triangular opening, like the entrance to a tent, for the sleeper to climb inside. Finally he unfolded a little stepladder and placed it convenient to the upper bunk.

He turned to Diana and Mark with a faintly pleased look, as if he had performed a magic trick. “Just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll make up your side,” he said.

“Doesn’t it get stuffy in there?” Diana asked him.

“Each bunk has its own ventilator,” he replied. “If you look just above your head you can see yours.” Diana looked up and saw a grille with an OPEN/CLOSED lever. “You’ve also got your own window, electric light, clothes hanger and shelf; and if you need anything else, press this button and call me.”

While he had been working, the two passengers on the port side, handsome Frank Gordon and bald Ollis Field, had picked up their overnight bags and trooped off to the men’s room; and now Davy began to make up the bunk on that side. The arrangement was slightly different over there. The aisle was not in the center of the plane, but nearer to the port side, so on that side, there was only one pair of bunks, placed lengthwise rather than across the width of the plane.

Princess Lavinia returned in a floor-length navy blue peignoir trimmed with blue lace, and a matching turban. Her face was a mask of frozen dignity: obviously she found it painfully uncomfortable to appear in public in her nightclothes. She looked at the bunk in horror. “I shall
die
of claustrophobia,” she moaned. No one took any notice. She stepped out of little silk slippers and climbed into the lower bunk. Without saying good night, she pulled the curtain shut and fastened it tight.

A moment later Lulu Bell appeared in a rather flimsy pink chiffon ensemble that did little to conceal her charms. She had been stiffly polite with Diana and Mark since Foynes, but now she seemed to have suddenly forgotten her pique. She sat down beside them on the divan and said: “You’ll never guess what I just heard about our companions!” She jerked a thumb at the seats vacated by Field and Gordon.

Mark looked nervously at Diana and then said: “What did you hear, Lulu?”

“Mr. Field is an F.B.I. man!”

That was not so startling, Diana thought. An F.B.I. agent was only a policeman.

Lulu went on: “And what’s more, Frank Gordon is a prisoner!”

Mark said skeptically: “Who told you this?”

“Everyone’s talking about it in the ladies’ room.”

“That doesn’t make it true, Lulu.”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me!” she said. “That kid overheard a row between Field and the captain of the plane. The captain was mad as hell because the F.B.I, didn’t warn Pan American that they had a dangerous prisoner on board. There was a real set-to and in the end the crew took away Mr. Field’s gun!”

Diana recalled thinking that Field seemed like Gordon’s chaperon. “What do they say Frank did?”

“He’s a mobster. He shot a guy and raped a girl and torched a nightclub.”

Diana found that hard to believe. She had talked to the man herself! He was not very refined, it was true; but he was handsome and nicely dressed, and he had flirted with her politely. She could see him as a confidence trickster or a tax dodger, and she could imagine his being involved in illegal gambling, say; but it did not seem possible that he had deliberately killed people. Lulu was an excitable person who would believe anything.

Mark said: “It’s kinda hard to credit.”

“I give up,” Lulu said with a deprecating wave of her hand. “You guys have no sense of adventure.” She stood up. “I’m going to bed. If he starts raping people, wake me up.” She climbed the little stepladder and crawled into the top bunk. She pulled the curtains, then looked out again and spoke to Diana. “Honey, I understand why you got ticked off at me back there in Ireland. I been thinking about it, and I figure I asked for what I got. I was kind of all over Mark. Dumb, I know. I’m ready to forget it as soon as you are. Good night.”

It was close enough to an apology, and Diana did not have the heart to reject it. “Good night, Lulu,” she said.

Lulu closed the curtain.

Mark said: “It was my fault as much as hers. I’m sorry, baby.”

By way of reply, Diana kissed him.

Suddenly she felt comfortable and at ease with him again. Her whole body relaxed, and she slumped back on the seat, still kissing him. She was conscious that her right breast was pressing up against his chest. It was nice to be getting physical with him again. The tip of his tongue touched her lips and she parted them a fraction to let him in. He began to breathe harder. This was going a bit too far, Diana thought. She opened her eyes—and saw Mervyn.

He was passing through the compartment, going forward, and he might not have noticed her, but he turned and glanced over his shoulder, and froze, almost in midstride. His face paled with shock.

Diana knew him so well that she could read his mind. Although he had been told that she was in love with Mark, he was too downright stubborn to accept it, and so it came as a blow to him to see her actually kissing someone else, almost as bad as if he had had no warning.

His brow darkened and his black eyebrows contracted in an angry frown. For a split second Diana thought he was going to start a fight. Then he turned away and walked on.

Mark said: “What’s the matter?” He had not seen Mervyn—he had been too busy kissing Diana.

She decided not to tell him. “Someone might see,” she murmured.

Reluctantly he drew away from her.

She was relieved for a moment; then she began to feel angry. Mervyn had no right to follow her across the world and frown at her every time she kissed Mark. Marriage was not slavery: she had left him, and he had to accept that. Mark lit a cigarette. Diana felt the need to confront Mervyn. She wanted to tell him to get out of her life.

She stood up. “I’m going to see what’s happening in the lounge,” she said. “You stay there and smoke.” She left without waiting for a reply.

She had established that Mervyn was not seated to the rear, so she went forward. The turbulence had eased enough for her to walk without holding on. Mervyn was not in number 3 compartment. In the main lounge the cardplayers were settling down to a long game, their seat belts fastened, clouds of smoke around them and bottles of whiskey on the tables. She went into number 2. The Oxenford family took up one side of the compartment. Everyone on the plane knew that Lord Oxenford had insulted Carl Hartmann, the scientist, and that Mervyn Lovesey had sprung to his defense. Mervyn had his good points: she had never denied that.

Next she came to the kitchen. Nicky, the fat steward, was washing dishes at a tremendous pace while his colleague was making beds farther back. The men’s room door was opposite the kitchen. After that was the staircase to the flight deck, and beyond that, in the nose of the plane, number 1 compartment. She assumed Mervyn had to be there, but in fact it was occupied by off-duty flight crew.

She went up the stairs to the flight cabin. It was as luxurious as the passenger deck, she noticed. However, the crew all looked terrifically busy, and one of them said to her: “We’d love to show you around at another time, ma’am, but while we’re flying through this bad weather we have to ask you to remain seated and fasten your safety belt.”

Mervyn had to be in the men’s room, then, she thought, as she went down the stairs. She still had not found out where he was sitting.

When she reached the foot of the staircase, she bumped into Mark. She gave a guilty start. “What are you doing?” she said.

“I was wondering that about you,” he said, and there was something unpleasant in his tone of voice.

“I was just looking around.”

“Looking for Mervyn?” he said accusingly.

“Mark, why are you angry with me?”

“Because you’re sneaking off to see him.”

Nicky interrupted them. “Folks, would you return to your seats, please? We’re getting a smooth ride for the moment, but it’s not going to last.”

They made their way back to their compartment. Diana felt foolish. She had been following Mervyn and Mark had been following her. It seemed silly.

They sat down. Before they could continue their conversation, Ollis Field and Frank Gordon came in. Frank wore a yellow silk dressing gown with a dragon on the back, Field a grubby old woolen one. Frank took off his dressing gown to reveal red pajamas with white piping. He stepped out of his carpet slippers and climbed the little ladder to the top bunk.

Then, to Diana’s horror, Field took a pair of gleaming silvery handcuffs from the pocket of his brown robe. He said something to Frank in a low voice. Diana could not hear the reply, but she could tell that Frank was protesting. However, Field insisted, and in the end Frank offered one wrist. Field clapped one cuff on him and attached the other to the frame of the bunk. Then he drew the curtain on Frank and fastened the snaps.

It was true, then. Frank
was
a prisoner.

Mark said: “Well, shit.”

Diana whispered: “I still don’t believe he’s a
murderer.”

“I hope not!” Mark said. “We would have been safer paying fifty bucks and traveling steerage in a tramp steamer!”

“I wish he hadn’t put the handcuffs on. I don’t know how that boy can sleep chained to his bed. He won’t even be able to roll over!”

“You’re softhearted,” Mark said, giving her a hug. “The man is probably a rapist and you’re feeling sorry for him because he might not be able to sleep.”

She put her head on his shoulder. He stroked her hair. He had been mad at her a couple of minutes ago, but that seemed to have passed. “Mark,” she said, “do you think two people can get into one of these bunks?”

“Are you frightened, honey?”

“No.”

He gave her a puzzled look; then he understood and grinned. “I guess you could get two in—though not side....”

“Not side by side?”

“It looks too narrow.”

“Well”—she lowered her voice—“one of us will have to get on top.” He murmured into her ear: “Would you like to get on top?”

She giggled. “I think I might.”

“I’ll have to consider that,” he said thickly. “What do you weigh?”

“Eight stone and two breasts.”

“Shall we get changed?”

She took off her hat and put it down on the seat beside her. Mark pulled their cases from under the seat. His was a well-used cordovan Gladstone bag, hers a small, hard-sided, tan leather case with her initials in gold lettering.

Diana stood up.

“Be quick,” Mark said. He kissed her.

She gave him a swift hug, and as he pressed against her she felt his erection. “Goodness,” she said. In a whisper she added: “Can you keep it like that until you get back?”

“I don’t think so. Not unless I pee out the window.” She laughed. He added: “But I’ll show you a quick way to make it hard again.”

“I can’t wait,” she whispered.

Mark picked up his case and went out, going forward toward the men’s room. As he left the compartment, he passed Mervyn coming the other way. They looked at one another like cats across a fence, but they did not speak.

Diana was startled to see Mervyn dressed in a coarse flannel nightshirt with broad brown stripes. “What on
earth
have you got on?” she asked incredulously.

“Go on, laugh,” he said. “It was all I could find in Foynes. The local shop has never heard of silk pajamas—they didn’t know whether I was queer or just daft.”

“Well, your friend Mrs. Lenehan won’t fancy you in that getup.” Now why did I say that? Diana wondered.

“I don’t suppose she’d fancy me in anything,” Mervyn said crossly, and he passed on out of the compartment.

The steward came in. Diana said: “Oh, Davy, would you make up our beds now, please?”

“Right away, ma’am.”

“Thank you.” She picked up her case and went out.

As she passed through number 5 compartment, she wondered where Mervyn was sleeping. None of these bunks was made up yet, nor any in number 6; and yet he had disappeared. It dawned on Diana that he must be in the honeymoon suite. An instant later she realized that she had not seen Mrs. Lenehan seated anywhere when she walked the length of the plane a few moments earlier. She stood outside the ladies’ room, with her bag in her hand, frozen still with surprise. It was outrageous. Mervyn and Mrs. Lenehan must be sharing the honeymoon suite!